Hello, I'm coming in from World of Warships to see how this title is. Some general thoughts from what I've experienced at my point in the game:

Fabulous looking maps. I really wish WoWS had these water-based maps to play around in.

Various missions - Like WoWS, you have some generic missions, some of which sound alright, some of which I feel set you up as a non-team player as you chase something that you normally wouldn't, or shouldn't for the match. I however really like how the game lays out objectives for your type of plane and rewards you for carrying out those duties. That is something I wish WoWS had, we got a lot of guys that go around not having an idea what their ship excels at and what they mean to the team. Nice job to the WoWP devs for that.

Very nice looking planes. I cannot tell you about little details if they are accurate models but they look great.

Initially I was intent on F4U Corsair at Tier VI, etc. Currently with Tier V F4F. But right now the discipline and skill required to maximize the characteristics of these kinds of planes elude me. So yes, I've been caught dogfighting at low altitude with my F4F, XF4U-1. I'll figure it out. Right now it's simply easier with my Zeroes, currently at V for those. Flimsy, but in a dogfight she switches targets and dances easily. It's the kind of nimble fighter I can get into some stretches of killing 1, then 2, then 3 guys in quick succession.

Been trying different aircraft lines, RU GA, German Heavies, all seem to have something nice to them. Strengths and weaknesses to them all but I'm curious to see more. An aspect that has intrigued me a lot are high altitude performance, as trying to take my F4F, Zeroes, etc. to fight at altitude against some heavies and bombers just isn't effective. They stall out trying to get there quickly or just get vaped by purpose built planes for those altitudes.

Collisions - Yeah you probably hear this a lot but it's a weird mechanic with planes getting out with no damage.

Map issue - The only map I consistently do not like is Archipelago. North team has 1 cap closeby, South team has 2 very closeby caps. I've found it very hard for North team to win this if the South team has any brain cells. It's very quick, very easy it seems for South to have 2/3 caps while North has to batter themselves against an easy to reinforce defense down South. South has to be real stupid to lose this.

Aircraft variety - Nice to see tons of planes but what I really like is the variety even within different lines. One type of fighter isn't the same as another, some excel at high altitudes, some excel at lower ones, some are speed demons, some will turn and burn easily. Can we get more UK aircraft? No Tempest, Hurricanes? Also surprised, no Hellcat.

Haze, some folks (me included) would disagree with your analysis of Archipelago. Even though North only has one cap, that cap is a command center and pretty soon will have flights of bombers charging down at the other 2 caps. It can easily go either way even though you wouldn't think the 2 caps v 1 cap would be even, but it kind of is even.

Yeah, folks around here have been begging for more aircraft for a while, but since they're in the middle of working bombers into the game, there's probably no chance of seeing a Grumman or Hawker line anytime soon.

It is possible to get lower altitude aircraft (like Zeros and Yaks) up to engage bombers, but you have to plan ahead of time and you can't completely use up all of your energy (altitude + airspeed = energy) before you try. You just have to realize that it's not going to happen quickly. For the most part, other team members in more capable aircraft should take care of bombers for the team, but since most of them are bots, sometimes you have to handle things the hard way. I really don't like the bomber attack flight mechanics right now, because it often seems way overpowered. It's like, hooray we just shot down all the bombers and our cap point is safe... not, here comes the next group.

Since you seem to have success with turn and burn fighters, I would suggest trying the British spitfire line and the Russian La line. They're mid level turn and burn planes that can do a little bit of zooming as well and have decent durability.

Haze, some folks (me included) would disagree with your analysis of Archipelago. Even though North only has one cap, that cap is a command center and pretty soon will have flights of bombers charging down at the other 2 caps. It can easily go either way even though you wouldn't think the 2 caps v 1 cap would be even, but it kind of is even.

Yeah, folks around here have been begging for more aircraft for a while, but since they're in the middle of working bombers into the game, there's probably no chance of seeing a Grumman or Hawker line anytime soon.

It is possible to get lower altitude aircraft (like Zeros and Yaks) up to engage bombers, but you have to plan ahead of time and you can't completely use up all of your energy (altitude + airspeed = energy) before you try. You just have to realize that it's not going to happen quickly. For the most part, other team members in more capable aircraft should take care of bombers for the team, but since most of them are bots, sometimes you have to handle things the hard way. I really don't like the bomber attack flight mechanics right now, because it often seems way overpowered. It's like, hooray we just shot down all the bombers and our cap point is safe... not, here comes the next group.

Since you seem to have success with turn and burn fighters, I would suggest trying the British spitfire line and the Russian La line. They're mid level turn and burn planes that can do a little bit of zooming as well and have decent durability.

As for getting to higher altitude with some planes not built for it, yeah I was able to do that but as you said, you got to do this way earlier. Do it with a more gradual incline, you can't rocket up like some planes do.

Been seeing a lot of Spitfires to the point where I want to check them out.

Edit: As for Archipelego, I disagree. South team can just sit around the cap and intercept bombers for Credits & XPs. North team STILL has to push against their defense with the pressure of losing the cap war if their attack fails. The bombers won't do anything, they fail all the time.

Hey, Haze
Glad to see someone else from WoWs here also. I am enjoying the game also and trying new plane lines. For me, I was just terrible at WoT, pretty decent at WoWs, and seem to be be doing better in general with planes. I think this game encourages more aggressive play. In WoT, tanks would turtle up and my aggressive pushes would send me back to the garage fast. In WoWs, while you had cover, in the form of islands, overly aggressive pushing got you dead. Here, in WoWp, I feel I can push in harder, and if your plane is fast or agile enough, you can get out fast. Not so in tanks and ships, at least for me anyway. In summary, glad to be here and I am enjoying the game immensely.

However, I would throw in that at this point, it feels like low/mid-tier Ground Attack planes are for suckers. If your team is good, you cap out and there's nothing left for you to do except occasionally steal kills from your team's fighters. If your team is bad, you're just dead. If you and the other team both try to ground attack the same point, you compete for buildings until they're all gone and then slap fight the red GAs for a while until they respawn. So basically, if you pick GA, you hope for a mostly-balanced-but-your-team-is-slightly-better game, or else it's a bad time.

Some of the stock setups are also ridiculously obvious FXP sinks. The 20mms on Ju-87G are a joke, for instance, that cost 7k FXP to skip. I know all the long-timers are laughing at me complaining about 7k, but it's a substantial percent of what I have at T5.

Also not a fan of the gold consumables. Ammo is annoying but not that big a difference, but the silver consumables having 50% more cooldown than the gold ones... not a fan.

Honestly, the game's been fun, but the monetization model will probably keep me out long-term.

You can see my 30 hours of play time and like 270 battles or so. I've done the American heavy line to the P-38F, played through the P-40 as well. I've also played the German's through the Bf-109E, and the wretched He-112 to unlock the FW-190A1. I round out my WoWP experience with the USSR fighters through Tier IV (both the I-16l and I-17), and the Yak-1, Yak-7 at Tier V. Oh, and the Bristol-146. I also have the Corsair pack. Purely by time flown, the P-40 and XFL-1 are tops in my Hangar. That's where I'm coming from...here are my impressions:

If you want to win, play a good TnB line. If you want to be more niche, but more survivable, run a BnZ heavy. If you're a masochist, run an "energy" or BnZ fighter.

To elaborate - GA do have a use. The bots are so incompetent that one GA A/C can loiter near indefinitely over an OBJ and solo cap it. There are few things more frustrating than losing a cap to a lone GA that snuck through...but, it happens. Between GA and MRF doing their thing to cap objectives, there seems to be a LOT, the majority even, of fighting done down low. TnB fighters rule at those lower altitudes and can, in fact, pretty easily turn on and engage BnZ fighters before they escape. Neither BnZ nor MRF can hope to compete with a TnB in a straight dog fight - so, either a teammate keeps your tail clean for you, or you get torn to pieces. Heavies have it a bit better when it comes to their egress, but they need to be careful and choosing a target and they need to disengage cleanly...if they scrub speed to extend the engagement, they're just asking to get wrecked.

Altitude doesn't seem to count for a whole lot. Even low level TnB fighters can boost after BnZ fighters (or even heavies) up to 1500-2000 meters without too much trouble. There's nothing quite so depressing as flying something like a P-40 an realizing you cannot out run, out turn, or out climb that Spitfire...all you can do is choose how you die.

A TnB fighter like the Spitfire can loiter over the OBJ at their optimal altitude and wreck face. That lends itself to a lot of user friendliness.

A BnZ fighter or MRF needs to be very mindful of when and where to engage...and expect to get wrecked, often, by TnB fighting on their turf/altitude.

Heavies feel like you're losing productivity making long BnZ passes, but they are good for saving teammates with their speed.

I'd say if you're going to try out the GAA lines, do it for the fun of blowing stuff up. In general they have a hard time really influencing the battle (even as the top score on the team), but you always get to blow stuff up in the coolest way possible

I'm an ex WoWs player too, from the EU. WoWp 2.0 seemed like fun, thanks to some Youtubers, so I jumped aboard and enjoyed it most of the time.

129 battles in and I made it to T4 and would have hit T5 by now if I didn't want to unlock every plane by earning the necessary exp before moving along. Still, some of those T4's are very nice and worthy of some extra time (I16, I17 and He 112) I am also enjoying the crap out of the Me BF 110 B for a day or two now.

The steamrolls come and go and are generally less of a problem at T4 than at T2.

I was amazed at how unintuitive pilot retaining can be. In WoWs, all you need to do is move your captain to a ship; retraining for 50% is automatic, and you pay to get it done faster. In WoWp, the 50% retaining is NOT automatic; i.e. you end up wasting time if you don't.

These teams are really bad. You can't expect anyone to do their share of the workload, you're flying in a sky full of incompetents in your team. I thought I knew terrible play in WoWS, but this takes the cake.

I was amazed at how unintuitive pilot retaining can be. In WoWs, all you need to do is move your captain to a ship; retraining for 50% is automatic, and you pay to get it done faster. In WoWp, the 50% retaining is NOT automatic; i.e. you end up wasting time if you don't.

On the other hand, retraining a very skilled captain in WoWS takes forever without gold, and good luck retraining him to low tier without prem ships to grind him on. In WoWP you pay 100k silver and you reach the point where it takes "only" 10k EXP to retrain. By T5 it takes more than 10k EXP to reach the next and silver is so very easy to get with some prem planes giveaways...

Aren't you get 50% retraining by silver and full by gold in WoWS? Free means you grind him all the way up. The static rate of 250k a pop means that you might as well not pay for a fresh captain retraining.

...or you mean having no handy popup that ask you whether you want to retrain your pilot? Such conveniences don't exist in the predecessors...........

HazeGrayUnderway, on 08 November 2017 - 02:20 AM, said:

These teams are really bad. You can't expect anyone to do their share of the workload, you're flying in a sky full of incompetents in your team. I thought I knew terrible play in WoWS, but this takes the cake.

Take solace in the fact that many of those teams are just dumb bots here in WoWP. In WoWS, most of the time, they really are players - actual people.

WoWP makes a great jousting game...especially with the 262 and people busy in furballs...
I am deaf, silent, and fly with unrealistic controls. Do not count on me to carry - my back's already broken from overweight.

Take solace in the fact that many of those teams are just dumb bots here in WoWP. In WoWS, most of the time, they really are players - actual people.

Yeah, I'm looking at the names and all, etc. Between them and the lack of help, it gets crazy at times as you're trying to single-handedly win the match. It's real fun playing GA like this when the bots will not take the queue and engage the fighters.

Yeah, I'm looking at the names and all, etc. Between them and the lack of help, it gets crazy at times as you're trying to single-handedly win the match. It's real fun playing GA like this when the bots will not take the queue and engage the fighters.

In my case I just don't really pay much attention whether or not I win the match and just try to do the best I can at blowing stuff up in the coolest way possible. As a GAA you have to quickly make an analysis of the battle situation and figure out where you should go to be able to wreck havoc in relative peace. It's usually better to avoid areas with a lot of enemies (and close to spawn points) unless you're certain that your team can win the fight and that the enemy prefers to dogfight rather than get an easy kill. If you can try to steal a zone from them while they're on the other side of the map, go for it. I set myself the mentality that if an enemy plane wants to pick a fight with me, I have 2 oportunities to actually kill them: a head-on fight into a ram (GAAs can take it) or a bombkill. After that you're pretty much dead against any decent player, so I just keep on destroying ground targets trying to capture the area before I die, or at least leave it at a point where an ally can push it over the edge with minimal effort.

Aside of that, it also pays off to sometimes go for unorthodox targets if your entire team goes off to capture one point. For example, if we have a garrison and a command center near the spawn at the start of the battle, and every single teammate goes for the Command Center, I consider it better for me to get the Garrison in the meantime. I get a fairly hefty reward for capping a zone on my own, my teammates get less downtime between the start of the battle and getting shot down by the enemy, and the team gets an extra +3 supremacy points per tic (unless it's a Mining Facility, that requires the full attention of GAAs and Bombers to cap, or a handful of dead planes). And like I said before, if you want to play as a GAA, do it for the love of destroying entire bases. As things are right now, if you want to really contribute to your team you might be better off as a Multirole Fighter, as GAAs can't really secure wins, but even then I love them for what they are